


Tony Stark Has a... Cat?

by unclechrom (ylisseanprince)



Series: Stark's Tower for Strays [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Avengers, Fluff, Introspection, M/M, POV Tony Stark, Pining, Pre-Slash, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, original... cat? lol, with a wee bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 00:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20591366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ylisseanprince/pseuds/unclechrom
Summary: Tony tried to avoid all of it for a while, just waiting for the initial excitement and fuss about the new fluffy resident to pass like it inevitably would. Eventually the ball would drop, so he waited, and he waited, but it never did. Seemingly, all of the Avengers were incredibly fond of the adorable little cat.Especially Steve.(Or, Tony's POV of the first part of Stark's Tower for Strays)





	Tony Stark Has a... Cat?

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to show parts of Tony’s POV of the first fic, but this turned out a lot longer than I expected, oop. It’s mostly some introspection with a bit of kitty fluff.

Asking the Avengers to move into his tower after the Chitauri attack was the worst idea Tony Stark had ever had in his life, and it had some pretty stiff competition from his wilder days.

Things had been going well, much better than Tony had admittedly expected. Their teamwork had been fantastic even when they had been tossed together in the middle of a world-threatening crisis, but now that the Avengers had lived together for a little over a year, their teamwork was, dare he say, flawless.

He had even found that he didn’t mind the little band of misfits outside of missions, too. In a more sentimental mood, Tony might even say they were close friends. Even the new kids Steve had recruited weren’t so bad; his miracuously not-so-dead best friend James Buchanan Barnes and a former pararescue airman by the name of Sam Wilson.

The Avengers were there when Tony needed something to ground him after his breakup with Pepper, something to keep him from falling too deep into the nightmares that kept him awake at night, constantly preparing for the next potential threat.

Steve had apparently decided it was his duty to retrieve Tony from the workshop whenever he was down there for an amount of time normal people deemed excessive. Of course, Tony gave into him every single time because he could never say no to Steve’s stupid beautiful blue eyes or his stupid honest face and the way he acted like he actually cared if Tony withered away from overworking himself. 

Tony’s ridiculous childhood crush on Captain America was just rearing its ugly head the longer Steve lived in the Tower. It really didn’t help any that Tony had gotten to know _Steve Rogers_ rather than just the national icon. Somehow, Captain America had more than lived up to the stories his father had told him as a child: incredibly brave and sharp minded on the field, and true to his beliefs, almost to a fault.

But Steve Rogers was a smartass and incredibly stubborn to the extent that he constantly gave Tony a run for his money in that regard. He was a dork who actually enjoyed the terribly cheesy movies Clint forced the team to watch, and sometimes he’d come down to draw in Tony’s workshop for god only knows what reason. Steve wasn’t anything like Tony had assumed from their confrontation on the helicarrier, and it was possible he might like him more than he did Captain America.

Yeah, things were going pretty well until the next stray Steve brought home.

Tony had finally dragged himself out of his workshop after hours and hours of working on gear upgrades for nearly every member of the team. Their last mission had revealed a few weaknesses, and he needed to work to make sure they couldn’t be taken advantage of in the future. But he also needed to refuel, and Steve had taken the coffee maker out of the workshop in an attempt to force him to leave occasionally and possibly interact with others. Tony hated that it worked.

He was in the kitchen on the communal floor when Steve came in, his cheeks were slightly red, so Tony figured he must have just taken his motorcycle out for a spin despite the fact that it was absolutely frigid outside.

And that was when everything started going to hell in a handbasket.

“Hey Tony,” Steve had greeted him while getting out what looked like ingredients to make hot chocolate. Because Steve, for all that he had quickly caught up with the modern world, was still adorably old fashioned. “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

Oh, Steve. Beautiful Steve. Wait, why did he think Tony had a cat? He’d lived here for like a year already, hadn’t he? That was definitely something that would have come up in conversation within that time, probably.

“What makes you think I have a cat?”

And then Steve directed his attention to the living room couch, where there was a fluffy orange cat draped across the arm of the couch, looking incredibly comfortable and very much like it lived there.

“Who the hell is that?” Tony demanded, totally unsure of where the hell this cat had come from. How did it get inside the Tower? Was there a security breach of some sort?

According to JARVIS, the cat had somehow slipped in through the street-level garage while Steve had been entering on his bike, and Tony couldn’t believe Captain America hadn’t noticed that. How the hell did something even slip into the garage? Tony would have to check on that because damn, that could be a massive security failure if all bad guys had to do was wait for one of them to use a car.

While he and Steve were starting to argue about whatever the hell was going on, of course Clint showed up out of nowhere and started petting the cat and fussing over it. The cat was leaning into the archer’s hand and looking absolutely _precious_. 

Seriously, Tony did not know what to do about Oliver and Company over there.

There were about a million issues running through his mind at once, security issues and Steve slowly growing more irate with him, because really, Tony was too good at carelessly pushing the man’s buttons. Wondering if any of the emotionally-stunted misfits who lived with him were even capable of taking care of a small fluffy creature, or if this would become a regrettable one-off and they’d end up taking the poor thing to a shelter after he became fond of it.

And Steve was making that face he always did whenever they argued, where his jaw went tight and he switched into _Captain_ mode. Tony wanted to just grab his face and kiss the tension right out of him, and he definitely shouldn’t do _that._

So Tony did what he always did best. 

He acted like a callous asshole to hide his true feelings and then promptly retreated back to his workshop.

...Which of course didn’t actually fix any of the issues, but hiding from them always made Tony feel better. Sort of. Well, that was what he tried to convince himself, anyway.

He tried to avoid all of it for a while, just waiting for the initial excitement and fuss about the new fluffy resident to pass like it inevitably would. Eventually the ball would drop, so Tony waited, and he waited, but it never did. Seemingly, all of the Avengers were incredibly fond of the adorable little cat.

Especially Steve.

Which really somehow made things worse. ‘Things’ as in really inconvenient childhood crushes on national icons. Really, Steve had some nerve being so absolutely perfect, and caring, and attractive, and everything Tony should never want because he knew he could never have it. He was kind and selfless, and he even brought home stray cats and brainwashed assassins for crying out loud. Tony didn’t even come close to deserving him, but knowing that didn’t make him _want_ any less. 

And the universe seemed that it wanted to keep reminding Tony of that. Instead of his feelings slowly dimming over time as Steve had been living in the Tower, it was just getting worse and harder to ignore. Wasn’t that the opposite of how exposure therapy worked?

It felt like Tony was constantly coming across Steve being sickeningly cute with the cat. He was starting to run out of words to describe how goddamn cute it was to see 6-feet of super soldier all bent over and talking in a baby voice to a cat, having full conversations when no one else was around. And it was _quite_ a sight on so many different levels. 

Honestly, the whole thing couldn’t possibly be good for Tony’s health with all the pounding his heart kept doing around Steve. He felt like he was going to develop arrhythmia. 

One morning Tony had wearily trudged himself up to the common floor to get himself from coffee. He hadn’t even checked what time it was, but the light coming through the windows looked suspiciously like the sun rising. Of course, who else would be awake at this ungodly hour other than the good Captain getting ready for his morning run?

And who else would be so full of energy and… morning person-ness before the sun was even fully up? It was wearing Tony out just to watch him.

But he kept watching (_of course_) because there was Steve, using _that voice_ as he spoke to the cat circling his ankles as he prepared food for the little fluffbutt. Orion’s eyes are huge and adorable as he watched Steve mix warm water into the food and mashed it all up (someone’s spoiled as fuck), and he kept meowing at the super soldier, who was making a conversation of it.

“Are you hungry, angel?” Steve asked, even though the answer was obvious by the way the cat was pacing the kitchen.

_“Mrowr.”_

“Really?” Steve gasped in mock surprise as he crossed the kitchen to the cat’s bowls. “Well, don’t worry, cutie pie, I’ve got your food right here.”

Tony could hear the cat “mrrr” in response as he darted to his food bowl ahead of Steve, and he had to choke back laughter at the scene. He wasn’t sure who was being cuter, but Steve was definitely giving Orion a run for his money in Tony’s opinion.

Quietly, Tony slipped into the kitchen and was steadfastly trying to ignore Steve and the cat, but he didn’t manage to escape with his coffee before Steve greeted him, thankfully without passing any judgement for Tony clearly not having slept yet.

And Tony missed this, missed Steve and how easy being around him used to be. Part of him hated how lately he constantly locked himself away in the workshop, but he had kinda committed to being an asshole about the cat, hadn’t he? 

How in the hell had things actually been simpler back when everyone had initially moved in and there had been a weird tension leftover from the helicarrier incident hanging over the Tower, especially between him and Steve. But somewhere along the way, the friction had faded into companionship, and some-fucking-how he’d become friends with this merry band of oddballs. And they hadn’t left Tony yet.

But he had to admit, the Tower somehow felt… warmer since the cat wandered in a couple weeks ago. Sure, the Avengers had already been well on their way to becoming really good… roommates before then, but it seemed like the fluffiest resident had become a sort of rallying point for them, giving them something else in common besides punching bad guys and having a shit ton of emotional baggage. Tony even thought he caught Natasha smiling the other day, and he wasn’t sure if he should run for his life or not.

Granted, that didn’t mean that Tony had managed to squash the tiny voice in the back of his head that reminded him that it didn’t matter. Over the years, he had developed a habit of defensively retreating into himself to avoid getting too attached because, eventually, everyone left Tony Stark. Really, the only exceptions to that were Rhodey and Pepper, and well… Pepper was still the CEO of his company and they were working on getting back to the whole “being friends” thing, but she hadn’t been able to handle his new superhero gig even after sticking around through some of the literal worst years of his life. 

There was some sort of cruel irony that cleaning up his act had been what finally pushed her away, even though Tony knew it was more the whole “you could literally die any time you put on that suit” thing. Which he couldn’t really blame her for since his near-death experiences had multiplied at least tenfold after he became Iron Man. 

It was something he hadn’t accounted for when he asked them all to move in to the Tower: the Avengers actually becoming more than a team… something more like a family. But here they were, and the Tower had begun to feel more like a home than it ever had before, and it almost terrified Tony more than what kept him up at night.

A couple days after walking in on Steve feeding the cat, Tony was deep in his thoughts in the workshop. He was trying to devise handholds on the suit that his less aerially-inclined teammates could use (and enemies couldn’t) for stability while getting a lift.

He just about had something figured out when he felt an uneasy sensation creep across his shoulders, as if he was being watched. Which was a ridiculous notion because only Steve ever bothered him while he was working, and the Tower was probably the safest building in the city if you didn’t count the feline infiltration.

Unable to shake the odd feeling, Tony cautiously peeked over towards the door, not quite sure who or what to expect. His eyes met golden ones peering through the glass, and he breathed out a sigh of relief that he didn’t know he was holding.

Ah, the cat.

Tony sighed as he turned away from his project, motioning for JARVIS to turn his music down, and fully faced Orion where he practically had his adorable face plastered to the door, getting little kitty noseprints all over the glass.

“J, how’d the cat get down here?”

“He took the stairs, sir.”

Tony rolled his eyes at the AI’s response and stared at the cat who was pawing gently at the door now that he had Tony’s attention.

“No,” Tony firmly told the cat through the glass.

His little shoulders drooped, and his face looked sad as he meowed to be let inside the workshop. It reminded Tony way too much of Dum-E whenever he yelled at the bot for messing up smoothies.

Well, clearly, the cat wasn’t going to give up and go away anytime soon. 

“Alright,” with another sigh, Tony motioned for JARVIS to allow the cat in. The little guy beelined for Tony and began rubbing against his shins for attention then jumped up on the table to get a better look at what Tony was fiddling with. Quickly, Tony moved anything sharp away from Orion’s too curious paws just to be safe.

“Did you sneak away from everyone to come down here?” Tony asked the cat as he sniffed the oil-stained gloves that had been haphazardly tossed onto the table earlier in the night. “You’re a regular ninja, sneaking everywhere, aren’t you?”

Orion looked up at Tony as he continued to talk to him, slowly blinking as he appeared to actually be listening.

“How do you not get noticed being all… orange and everything? Still don’t know how you got past Cap that first day.”

The cat circled around the table a couple of times before finding an agreeable spot to plop down and watch as Tony got back to work on his project. Occasionally he reached out to give Orion some ear scritches because it was pretty hard to resist all that soft fluffiness so close-by. There was something relaxing about the cat’s presence; Clint might’ve been right about the whole “serotonin machine” thing.

Apparently that night was the beginning of a new habit of Orion sneaking away from the communal floor to hang out with Tony in the workshop in the middle of the night when most of the other residents were asleep.

“Is this our thing now?” Tony asked the cat the next time he appeared at the door wanting to be left inside. “Or did Steve put you up to this?”

The cat gave a “mrrr” in response as he easily hopped onto the table, taking the same spot he had the previous time, settling down to watch the bright screens as Tony worked on something for SI.

“Who knew cats made good insomnia buddies?” He commented as he reached out to Orion to scratch his chin. The cat leaned heavily into his hand and closed his eyes in contentment.

Yeah, Tony definitely could see why the team fussed over the cat so much.

“Hey, JARVIS, make a note to get some food and water for him down here. Just because I forget to eat doesn’t mean he needs to follow my example.” 

“Noted, sir.”

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he eventually closed out his projects for the night (err, morning?). He had lost track while finishing up a couple of SI things that were due soon.

Orion was so sound asleep that his little mouth had fallen open, and he was softly snoring. Tony couldn’t help but smile at how sweet he looked completely at peace like that. 

“Hey, bud,” Tony reached out and gently poked the cat’s exposed (and extremely soft) belly in a halfhearted attempt to wake him up. “Naptime’s over.”

Instead of waking up, Orion grumbled and shifted in his sleep, putting his paws over his eyes but resolutely not budging.

“No, you can’t stay in here by yourself.” Tony told him as ran his fingers through the soft fur on the cat’s belly, which still didn’t wake him up.

“Alright, then.” He sighed and scooped the extremely asleep cat to carry him out of the workshop. “You’re lucky you’re so damn cute.”

The cat squirmed slightly in his arms while they rode up in the elevator, but Tony couldn’t really tell if he was actually asleep or just pretending to be so he could hitch a free ride. It was fine. He’d just drop the little guy off on the common floor and then maybe go take a nap of his own. There was a stiffness settled in his back, and he was starting to feel like hell after pulling all-nighters these days. Maybe he really was getting too old for this shit.

As luck would have it, the elevator doors opened on Bruce’s floor, and the scientist raised his eyebrow in an unimpressed look at Tony.

“Not a fucking word of this to anyone,” he (somewhat lamely) threatened Bruce as he stepped into the elevator and reached out to pet the cat, who magically woke up immediately upon contact. He totally had been feigning sleep for Tony. Devious, little bastard.

“I was wondering if you were gonna pretend not to like him as long as you’ve been pretending with Steve,” Bruce mentioned as the elevator headed for the common floor.

_What?_

Before Tony’s sleep-deprived brain could parse what Bruce had said, the door opened again, and Bruce left without another word. The cat wiggled down out of Tony’s arms to follow him, trotting behind the scientist with his tail straight in the air, leaving Tony alone with his thoughts.

…had he really been that obvious?

The next time Orion ventured downstairs to the workshop, JARVIS automatically opened the door for him and turned down the volume on Tony’s music. Dum-E beeped excitedly as he went to retrieve the cat toy Tony had given him to see if the bot would be able to play with Orion (for science, of course).

“Come to join the land of the insomniacs again, O’Malley?” Tony held out a treat for the cat as he hopped up on the table as was now routine and gave him some pets once the treat was eaten.

Dum-E quickly returned, cat toy in claw, and gently waved the fuzzy, jingly rope on a stick in Orion’s direction, beeping curiously as the cat’s attention immediately locked onto the toy. Orion leapt down off the table to start swatting at the toy as Dum-E kept it _just_ out of his reach. Tony couldn’t help but grin at the sight of the two of them.

“J, I’ve got an idea. Start a new file.”

“What would you like the title to be, sir?”

Tony pondered it for a second before answering.

“Orion’s Belt.”

**Author's Note:**

> "To prevent war, the Galaxy is on Orion's Belt."  
Gotta make an obligatory reference to the precious kitty's namesake, lol.
> 
> Anyway, my cat loves when I carry him around the house, and he tucks his paws and goes to sleep which is actually kinda awful because then he’s like 20 pounds of sleepy kitty doing absolutely nothing to help me hold him and I have approximately no upper body strength.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented and left kudos on the first part! I love love love comments <3


End file.
